Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout

My favorite day of the week, beer review day. I can’t lie, I have been looking forward to this beer for two weeks, and I cheated, I have already had a few of these before tonight which is not the norm for me as I usually wait till review night to try the beer. I have grown more and more a fan of anything stout but especially coffee stouts. Well this week is no different.

Coffee Oatmeal Imperial Stout – Terrapin Beer Co.

It pours really dark and thick, just a little thinner than molasses. At first you think there isn’t going to be any type of head but then a small thin brown head appears. The scent is mostly burnt rich chocolate with a slight hint of booze. The taste has a very rich bite of roasted malts with just a few hints of coffee coming through. The mouthfeel is a light, low carbonated one, not heavy at all for this type of beer. It also hides the 8.1% ABV very well, only leaving a tiny bit of an after taste.

Cheers!

FourBoysBrewPub!

Frambozen - New Belgium

Stop the presses! I made it on a Friday for a change. Not sure what to expect with this beer, it has a label that looks festive but not sure a Raspberry Brown Ale is a festive beer. I guess we shall see now won’t we.

Frambozen – New Belgium Brewing. What is Frambozen anyway???

It had a really weird color as I poured in the glass, and it created a purplish head but when the beer was all in the glass, it was almost black. I can definitely smell some tart raspberry but I get some of the famous New Belgium yeast biscuit smell that so many of their beers possess. The first taste is slightly sweet which can be expected from a fruit beer but then you really get the sweetness quickly followed by a sharp tartness of the raspberries. Almost no sign of a malt backbone which I find odd for a brown ale even if it is a fruit infused brown ale. A thin mouthfeel which helps, not sure this beer could handle something heavy as I think that would take away from the fruit that they obviously want you to experience.

Well, I guess I could see this as a festive type beer, not one I would want to drink more than one or two of but might enjoy with some desert after the Christmas dinner. OK, so my curiosity got the better of me before I could even finish this review, I had to know what Frambozen is, well idiot beer geek, it’s right there on the label, it’s Flemish for raspberry. Oh right, so what is Flemish? Oh, it’s a form of Dutch spoken in parts of Belgium, come on man, you gotta get out some more. Now, knowing all of this, I really see what this beer is, a very close ‘relative’ of a lambic. Don’t start with me on what a lambic is, it’s a Belgium Fruit beer made with wild yeast that is often very sour/tart.

Wow, try and drink a beer and make notes about it and you end up learning even more than just what beer you need for the family Christmas dinner, Flemish, a Dutch language, who knew. Cheers! I’m gonna need more beer after this one.

FourBoysBrewPub!

400 Pound Monkey - Left Hand Brewing

Coming to you live and direct on a Saturday night for the second week in a row, sorry ‘bout that. I would really prefer to review these beers on Friday but sometimes life gets in the way, so here we are. I had this beer planned for last week but then I was fortunate enough to get my hands on the very awesome ‘Bitches Brew’ and couldn’t let that pass. The name on this beer is what got my attention but the style is what really got me to get it. ‘400 Pound Monkey’, now who wouldn’t look twice at that right, but it is an English Style India Pale Ale. For those of you not familiar with IPA’s, America is really the only place they are brewed anymore but their origin is England, way back when they occupied India, they would put massive amounts of hop in the beer so it would not go bad before it got to the English soldiers in India, hence the name, India Pale Ale. Now on to the beer!

400 Pound Monkey – Left Hand Brewing Co.

Standard pour for an IPA or a pale ale, light golden in color with a decent head, nothing out of the ordinary. Scent is really in between an IPA and a Pale Ale, you get the scent of hops but not the ‘blow you away’ hops that an IPA gives you. I must say the taste is almost the exact same thing as the scent, either a hoppy Pale Ale or a light IPA. This is probably the best beer I have tried from Left Hand but still nothing I would go out of my way for, if I were in the mood for an IPA and this were available I would take it, but to be fair, and I have said this before, I’m not a fan of IPA’s, sorry hop heads.

So cheers once again beer friend, take it slow tomorrow cause Monday is just around the corner.

FourBoysBrewPub!

Bitches Brew - Dogfish Head

This review is coming a day later than normal because I felt I needed a full days rest, for two reasons, 1) Thanksgiving on Thursday and Friday and 2) There was such a buildup for this beer I needed to make sure I was mentally prepared. I even debated not doing it, just saving this beer for a special occasion, lucky for you I decided to go ahead a give it a review.

Bitches Brew – Dogfish Head Brewery

This is a fusion of 3 parts Imperial Stout and 1 part African honey beer, it pours like a dark chocolate stout with a dark brown head. The scent is all full of roasted and chocolate malts. I usually like to stay away from high gravity beers as I don’t really care to taste the alcohol in my beers, there is now way I would have believed this beer came in at 9% ABV if it wasn’t right there on the label. It’s a very smooth and creamy stout with the sweetness from the honey hitting you so late, you have to take a second sip to make sure it wasn’t your imagination. If anyone saw the Discovery debut of Brewmasters on this beer, it is amazing that they nailed this beer on just the second try and in only about 5 weeks at that. Definitely one of the best beers I had the pleasure of reviewing on my journey. I can only think of 2 or 3 beers that I would rank equal to this one. It would also be in my most interesting category as well.

Not sure if you will have a chance to get one of these beers as it was a special brew, but if you see it, you must get one, or two, I really wish I had bought two. Well, cheers anyway beer friend!

FourBoysBrewPub!

Blackberry Witbier - Samuel Adams

Here we are again; another day another dollar; TGIF; Friday, I’m in love with you. Can’t think of any other cheesy Friday sayings but oh well, this is about beer not Friday right. I don’t think I have ever had a beer with such a strong smell as this week’s review. As soon as I opened the bottle and before I even began to pour it I could smell the explosion of tartness from the blackberries.

Blackberry Witbier – Samuel Adams

I’ve said it several times but I am a sucker for beers with fruit, spices, etc... added to them, add in the fact that this one is from Samuel Adams and you know you have yourself a good beer. Let’s review it anyway shall we. I was a little surprised that it appears like a normal wheat beer, the other berry beers always seem to have a hint of red or blue or purple in them, not this one, typical orange cloudy hue. Nice thin but tight head and the smell is very tart, your jaws almost tingle just smelling it. Unfortunately the taste doesn’t quit live up to the smell, comes across the palate very smooth and bland, no sharp bite from the blackberry that you almost crave just smelling the beer. Don’t get me wrong, it is a very satisfying beer and would go great on a warm spring day but I just expected so much more considering the amount of tartness you get just sniffing the beer.

Cheers fellow brew heads!

FourBoysBrewPub!

Road Dog - Flying Dog Brewery

Before we start with this week’s review, here is a little shout out to a fellow beer blogger who accomplished a pretty cool thing the other day, yep, he did review #365, awesome job Drew.


The brewer of this week’s review was probably my first introduction into the craft brewery world. I was always someone who liked trying different beers but that usually meant imports till I came across this brewer. I remember picking up their 12-pack mixed packs that would have 2-3 different beers included. That was way back before I had any clue about the many different styles of beer. I learned a lot from their beers as they always put a scale on their package that gave you the hoppyness and darkness of the different beers. I think I only liked 2-3 of their beers back then but I have grown to enjoy all of them now.

Road Dog – Flying Dog Brewery

Pours out pretty standard for a porter, very dark basically black. It has a nice thick but loose head that fades quickly but still leaves some lacing on the glass. Unlike a lot of porters that come off as creamy, this porter has a scratchy feel to it, almost dry as if you are actually eating some of the many types of malt they use. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as this is still a very good drinkable beer. No real detection of hops to speak of, but with the IBU at 31 and this being a porter I didn’t really expect any.

Now to the picture, I picked this beer for the name. I looked in my fridge (that is still broken by the way) and as soon as I saw the name, I knew it was the one for this week. Georgia plays Auburn in Auburn, AL tomorrow which makes them the “Road Dawgs”, see what I did there, lame yes I know but amuse me and laugh, and you will also notice a referee shirt wearing creature on the bottle so obviously they had football in mind with this label. So here’s to my Dawg fans out there hoping UGA makes it 5 in a row over the Tigers, or the War Eagles, or do they even know what their mascot is.

So grab yourself some cold ones for tomorrow and sit down at 3:30 PM eastern time and watch the South’s oldest rivalry, this is what Fall in the south is all about people. Cheers!

FourBoysBrewPub!

Sawtooth Ale

Hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween last weekend, I say weekend cause some people did the trick r treating on Saturday and some did it Sunday and others even did it both days (candy hogs). I wish I had this beer last week as I think the name fits in with the Halloween theme, but it was given to me on Saturday night so, oh well, better now than never right.

Sawtooth Ale – Left Hand Brewing Co.

It pours out a nice deep amber color but I must say I am disappointed in the head, almost none to speak of. I always wonder when this happens if the glass is not beer clean or the beer is too cold or if I poured it crappy or if the brewer screwed up and it just doesn’t produce a good head. I get a nice subtle scent of hops with maybe a touch of citrus coming through, nothing overbearing. The first sip is almost boring with the flavors melding almost too well cause nothing jumps out to forefront, but then just as to go to swallow those subtle citrus hops give you a nice flavor. I guess with a name like Sawtooth I was expecting a bit more kick, it’s nice but nothing to get excited about.

So the weekend is here again my beer friend so let’s all slow down and enjoy our favorite adult beverage cause Monday will be back with a vengeance. Cheers!

FourBoysBrewPub!